Sync Your iPhone with Google Calendar

I've been wanting this since the day I first synced my iPhone with iTunes. I use Google Calendar religiously and to think that I was going to have a different calendar on my iPhone didn't appeal to me. So why did it take me so long to get it setup? I'm not sure... that's besides the point. ;-) There are several options available so far, and I've only setup one, but I'll give you a quick synopsis of my experience.

First of all, if your looking to sync your iPhone calendar with Google Calendar, there are a few options. I'm going to review the one that I've used below, but you can also look at SyncJe from Nexthaus.com, it syncs more than just your calendar, but it's only got a 15 day free trial. The full version is $40.

Also, there is NemusSync, which seems to have gotten pretty good reviews. For this, you'll need to Jailbreak your iPhone and install an app to get it to work. Lifehacker says it's an app worth Jailbreaking for.

If your a Mac user with iCal, you can sync your iPhone and Google Calendar when you plug your phone in and sync the whole thing with iTunes. Check out this Switched post about how to do that.

For me, I found that the best and simplest Google Calendar sync with your iPhone is using NuevaSync.com - a beta service that allows Over The Air synchronizing so you don't have to wait to plug in your phone with your computer. It's very simple, and I followed these steps below to get it to work. It took only about 5 minutes to get it working! Very simple.

IMPORTANT NOTE #1: Syncing your iPhone calendar with Google Calendar using NuevaSync will delete your existing iPhone calendar. It might be safest to make sure that you do not have orphan calendar events on your iPhone that are not in Google Calendar. Another good safety precaution would be to sync your phone and have a latest backup to "restore" if things go wrong. (The service works very well and have not heard of any problems)

IMPORTANT NOTE #2: If you already have a Microsoft Exchange account setup on your iPhone, this will not work. NuevaSync.com uses a Microsoft Exchange server to synchronize your calendars, and the iPhone only allows one Exchange account to be setup on the phone.

1. Make sure your not going to lose any iPhone calendar events by double checking that your iPhone calendar events are entered into your Google Calendar.
2. Go here to NuevaSync and sign up for an account. It's a very primitive registration process, and I would imagine it will get a facelift sooner or later. Still, it works well and, from my experience, has no problems.
3. Once your through registration, you'll have to check your email and verify that you can receive mail at that address. Click on the link in the email NuevaSync just sent you.
   
4. After you've verified your account, you should land on a simple dashboard page. Click on change next to the Calendar item (the first row).
5. Choose Google and click Change
6. Click the link on the following page that says Click to configure your service...
7. Enter the Google account where your Google Calendar resides. This process will send you to Google and ask you to confirm that you wish to grant NuevaSync access to your calendar.
• Select your Google account that you wish to sync
• Click Continue
• Click Grant Access
8. Now you will return to NuevaSync's website and you can click Continue

Now pull out your iPhone and follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings
2. Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars
3. Tap Add Account...
4. Select Microsoft Exchange
5. For the settings of this Microsoft Exchange account, enter the following information:
• Email: the email address you used to register with on NuevaSync
• Username: the username you chose for NuevaSync
• Password: the password your chose for NuevaSync
• Description: any descriptor you'd like to identify the account
6. Tap Next
7. It sould work to connect for a few seconds and then appear with a Server field that you need to populate, enter www.nuevasync.com
8. Tap Next
9. On the following page, you'll need to make sure that the settings are as follows:
• Mail: off
• Contacts: off
• Calendar: on
10. Tap Save

And voila! Pretty simple, set it once and forget it. Now if you go into your iPhone calendar application, you should see your Google Calendar events populted! Changes you make to the events on your phone will sync to your Google Calendar and vise-versa.

Enjoy, I hope this helps!